


kill your heroes

by ikijai



Category: The Defenders (Marvel TV)
Genre: Gen, Implied Character Death, No Dialogue, Post-Episode: s01e08 The Defenders, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-02
Updated: 2017-09-02
Packaged: 2018-12-23 02:07:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11979846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ikijai/pseuds/ikijai
Summary: Tiny thing about Jessica dealing with Matt's 'death'. Post-The Defenders.





	kill your heroes

  
Jessica doesn't depend on people—doesn't trust them as far as she can throw them.

With the exception of Trish, it's been that way for a while. Then Luke showed up. Then Danny and—and _Murdock_. The devil of hell’s kitchen who is the furthest thing from the devil. _Past tense_ , she thinks. Matt ‘ _I don't want to kill_ ’ Murdock is past tense now. A _was_.

It's been a week since the incident, practically the amount of time in which they knew each other.

It pisses her off. The whole thing pisses her off in ways she can't put words to.

Being a PI has taught her to be observant, paying attention to details most people ignore on a daily basis. Yet she can't ignore the fact that it doesn't add up. Not his death or the pain or the guilt from knowing she took part in it.

And she can't help but to think that one week wasn't enough time. That their team deserved more than one pitiful threat and less than ten days together.

It's colder outside than it'd been, like the world knows the devil’s disappeared into thin air. The whole town is drowned out in tones of black and blue.

His friends deserved better. She thinks their names were Karen Page and _Something_ Nelson, but she'd only seen them once—when she'd been instantaneously solaced and torn up as she'd taken Trish into her embrace at the precinct and watched as they took in only empty space while trying to hold back tears. And she took part in it.

She couldn't protect him the way he tried to protect them. It’s all screwed up and twisted and no amount of drinks will wash away the taste of disgust that's taken a permanent spot at the tip of her tongue.

She's used to it, though. Watching the death toll increase on her watch and wondering why she ever tried to call herself a defender. There's no Kilgrave this time—just her and her tenth drink today. There's her and a burning pain in the pit of her gut behind a pocketed phone with twelve missed calls and fingers too numb to pick it up.

There's Matt Murdock’s overtly understanding words picking at her brain and tears she lets drop only once she's isolated in her office under the pretense of work.

He was insufferably positive and indebted to the world. Whispered promises, teeth biting dust determined. Terribly uncomfortable train rides. Snarky words or dorky comebacks.

He wasn't like other people, he didn't twist her up and tie her down until she couldn't breathe. He understood. He was a _friend_ , she thinks. That word that she's never really known how to place with people. Yet that's what he was. A friend and a partner and a real human being. _And he's dead._

Images of him intrude her thoughts in ways that have nothing to do with investigating, nothing to do with throwing back another drink and saying _screw it_.

 _You knew_ , she thinks violently. _You knew you'd die and your dumbass tried to play the hero anyway._

She feels tears threatening for the umteenth time—feels how much she hates the intrusive emotion she thinks is something like sadness. Something like personified death. Unusual. _Unpreventable_.

She walks down to the bar only once the world is drenched in darkness, wishing to any false prophet that _they_ won't be there. Twice would be too much. She can't take it yet. She can't take the sympathetic looks and soothing tones she doesn't deserve. Can't take knowing that his two best friends are probably planning how they'll bury a body that isn't there or tell a family he doesn't have.

When she does see the others, Luke will call her _Jess_ and Danny will tell her how determined _Daredevil_ was when he uttered, “ _Protect my city_.” But she knows they'll never get the opportunity to be anything more than that without their team.

They can't pretend it didn't happen. _Jessica_ can't pretend it didn't.

It punches into her just now that she _liked_ him, trusted him despite everything. Knowing that only makes it worse—it only makes the taste of the drink she downs unpleasant.

One or two days ago, she'd watched from a distance as they’d lit a vigil in the dark and tried to be _positive_. Luke and Danny were there, his _friends_ were there. Karen wiped her eyes and turned into Murdock’s partner whose name she can't recall. He wore a tie and tried to act like the tough one even as tears dripped in waves. She wishes she knew his name.

Claire Temple'd been there with a dead expression she's certain she’s never witnessed on a human being before. Wing. Knight wrapped in a jacket. The picture is vivid in her mind, more vivid than any private photograph she's ever taken. The weight is too much to take. And she didn't even know him the way they did.

‘ _I'm glad we found each other_ ,’ he'd said that day. And she wishes she'd said it back. But she didn't, and now she's walking down an empty street with a feeling that's opposite to empty digging deep in ways that destroy her inside-out.

Murdock was a lot of things: pro bono lawyer, doppelgänging vigilante—know it all. But over everything he was, he was a damned good person who knew what it meant to protect.

She's disgusted when there's a tiny part of her that's glad it wasn't Trish. She hates herself for it. It keeps her wide awake at night and tired during the day.

His very being pounds in her skull. The way he couldn't see her with his eyes yet he did in every other way possible. The way they just _walked out_ instead of staying down there together.

The worst part is they can't talk about it—they can't have people putting it together that _Matt Murdock and the devil were one person._ Protecting his identity is just more important, somehow.

She’d wish she were in his place, but deep down she knows there's people that would mourn her death, too. And it's all unthinkable. It's all damned to hell and ice cold and impossible.

There's this thing she can't identify prowling through her, poking her insides until she thinks she'll open up right there on the bar stool she droops herself over until intrusive thoughts are all she sees.

_What's the point of being New York's hero if it'll only turn on you in the end?_

There's no justification to it, no matter how much she wishes his death made any ounce of sense. It just _doesn't_.

She can't help but to think she'll see him jumping through windows and on top of buildings while she drives through unknown streets. She can't help but to feel ill when Danny tries to imitate the things he did.

There's a part of her that knows it isn't true. She tells herself that's why she doesn't want to talk to the others—because she's made herself dizzy with walking and driving and searching for a dead man.

She's always been good at her job, but this is different. This doesn't feel like work. Her impervious demeanor feels like a transparent wall these days. Her knuckles tighten over a dirty table.

He only wanted to help people. But in the end, it was people who let him down. It was people who killed him. She takes a drink and tries not to think about the people she wants to kill.

There may be no more destination for them, but there will always be pain. _Daredevil_ will always be dead.


End file.
